Description

I start two ubuntu 64 guest host, they both connect to Hostonly ethernet adapter.
My topo is like this:
ubuntu-64 ----- ubuntu-64-2
Then I ping ubuntu-64-2 from ubuntu-64, after about 10 minutes，the host reboot with no minidump.

I reproduce the problem by official edition. This time, I ping ubuntu-64 from ubuntu-64-2 by large packet(8100 byte). The ping command is ping -s 8100 -c 100000 33.0.0.2. I think you can reproduce it local.

I wasn't talking about Windows XP as host, I was saying about Windows XP Mode, which runs inside your Windows 7 Pro, if you do have it installed.

Also, you've said that it takes 10 minutes for the host to reboot. The guest might do something at the 10 minutes mark and trigger the reboot. Ubuntu (as guest), by default, turns off the (guest) display after 10 minutes of inactivity.

So, you're saying that the host can reboot spontaneously, right after starting the guests? Can you trigger the reboot with only one guest?

We have a suspicion but we need to test it. Could you install this package (here is the corresponding extpack)? This is a build from current trunk (so not for production usage). Install this package, run your 64-bit VM on your 32-bit host for some time but make sure to power off your VM before your host crashes. Then, please attach the resulting VBox.log file to this ticket. Again, make sure that the VM is properly powered off. The log file will contain numbers which either approve our suspicion or disprove it. Thank you! Well, there is still the improbable case that with this trunk package the host reboot does not happen. In that case we would appreciate feedback as well.

feverwind, could you also try this build? The VT-x code was rewritten a lot and this build has the new code disabled. So in case your host crashes with this build we know at least where to start searching. Unfortunately our suspicion (NMI interrupts) was not confirmed by your last experiment. Thank you!

artfolk, thanks for testing! Can you start a VM again with this test build but make sure that it wouldn't reboot? I mean, just run it for a few minutes, then shut down the guest properly. Then attach the VBox.log file this this ticket. There is some statistics counter enabled which would confirm or refute an assumption about the problem. Thank you!

Things used to run fine until an upgrade to VBox 4.2.10, and the pb seems to get worse after each new update (currently using VBox 4.2.16).

I tried to reduce the nb of processors, to remove support of unused peripherals, to increase/decrease the memory but not way.

A few things I have observed:

I use other VMs that run OK, but they are all 32 bits old OSes (WinXP or RedHat)

With the 64bits OpenSuse VM, the reboots are more frequent if the host is heavily used
(for example: running a parallel build on the host while the guest VM is launched will almost always reboot the system).

It also seems to me that they are more reboots when the host machine is hot, and I wonder if the pb has something to do with some thermal detection hardware.

My last try is VirtualBox V4.0.18 and a full day of test has not revealed the reboot pb with this older release.

The tests where mainly based on workload:

doing light work in the host (word processing) while performing parallel builds on the guest

performing parallel builds on the host while the guest runs only a desktop and a few shells with light cyclic processes (like "top", "ping", etc)

performing concurrent parallel builds the host and the guest

The concurrent parallel build tests were done with allowing 4 on 8 CPUs to the guest, while the host was already using all of the 8 CPUs (just to be sure that there will be enough hardware shaking between the VM and the host).

For now, I will keep using this V4.0.18 and report any further pb if any.